Chapter 22

Cold Trail and Hot Pepper

I take another peek at Bukowski, and he's stopped flat, staring up at Starfire and then staring down at his gun as if someone else put it in his hand.

Manny's still talking, gazing over at the airport people: "See, that's why I checked out for an hour—to clean my truck. It took longer than I thought because…of the blood. Lotta blood."

"Any cuts in the upholstery?" asks Tim.

"Yeah, a bunch. And a…a slice through one of the windows."

A-ha! That proves Cross Cut was in his truck! So I deduce that Dr. Ignatieff must have been inside it, too—and I start hoping that wasn't her blood.

"That call this morning—did you receive it on this phone?" Tim holds up a different cell phone, and Manny's eyes get all wide since he never felt Tim take it off his belt, but he nods. "Okay, we'll try to trace it." Tim pulls another thingie that looks like a cell phone with less buttons out of one shoulder pouch. "You record everything, Cyborg?"

Vic nods, holding up one finger that I know has a microphone at the end.

Tim hands the cell phone and the other thingie to Marshal Montez. "Here's Mr. Apugnacio's phone and a recording of everything he just told us." He turns back to Manny. "You cooperate with the Marshals now, sir. It's important, and it'll help."

Marshal Montez gets Manny to his feet while Deputy Chief Marshal Alioto holds up his badge and calls out, "Who's security for this airport?"

The lady with the cell phone steps forward.

"We'll need to use your facilities to talk to our suspect," says Alioto. "And we'll need records of every flight out of here today."

"You got it," she says. "There were only four."

"More likely, our suspects drove away," says Tim. "Do you have security cameras on the parking lot?"

The lady snorts. "We've got three cams and only one that's reliable, so we use it for the boarding area. I'll get you all the footage we have." She walks briskly off to the terminal building with Montez and Manny and the rest of the crowd following.

Alioto steps over to Vic, and Tim and Cassie join them, and most times like this I go hang around with Kon and Gar and Kory, but now I'm working on this case, too, so I stand beside Tim, listening.

Alioto says, "We found two of our unaccounted-for."

"Uh-huh," says Vic. "Sorry about that."

"We're still searching for Marshal West and Dr. Ignatieff—and Crossley. There's a dive squad at the reservoir, and forensics at the chopper."

"We already collected samples!" I say. "I mean, Agent R did."

Tim makes a face at me and turns back to Alioto: "I'll send your lab my results for confirmation. If it's any comfort, I'm pretty sure that Mr. Mirani wasn't conscious when his throat was cut."

"Yeah, I saw," says Alioto.

"What?" I say. "How'd you guess—"

"Hey, Kid Flash." Cassie grabs my arm and tugs me aside with a whisper: "Back when Robin was talking to the suspect, you looked like you had to go to the bathroom."

"No, that was my 'bad cop' look," I explain quietly. "I don't have to go to—well, I didn't until you said something!"

So I run way out in the desert and water a Buckhorn Cholla cactus, and while I'm out there I decide to run all the way around the airport in a big circle one way and then the other way, looking for Clues like new tracks from dirt bikes or SUVs, since it would be just like Cross Cut to try to escape into the desert instead of using the air or the roads, but I don't find anything, so I run back to the hangar.

As I come close, I spot Kon up on the steel roof, glaring down, and it takes me just a second to deduce that he's fixing the holes with his TTK and his heat vision.

I find Tim on the ground and tell him, "I couldn't find a trail!"

"It's gone cold here," he says, "and I need to get those samples into the lab."

"I'll carry them!"

"No, I need to be there to do the analysis," he says, and Kory walks over and hoists him into her arms.

"So what can I do?" I ask Vic.

"We're heading back to the tower," says Vic.

Gar turns into a green lemur and jumps onto Tim's shoulders, and Kory blasts off into the air. Vic waves for Kon to come down and tells him, "You carry me, Superboy, so we can make the best speed."

"He should pull me along, too," says Cassie. "I can't fly as fast as him."

Vic makes a face, but he nods, and Superboy takes one of Cassie's hands and one of Vic's and takes off after Kory.

And four seconds later I'm in the Tower kitchen waiting, waiting, wait—

"Hello, Bartholemew."

I jump and whirl around. "Hi, Raven! Um. How are you?"

"I am well. I sense that you are unsettled."

"No, no, totally settled!" I don't want her to feel bad.

"I refer to the deaths of the marshals," says Raven. "And to how the culprits remain at large, and Dr. Ignatieff unrecovered."

"Are you doing that mind-reading thing?"

"I have followed the conversation on the radio and prepared for your return. Now I must leave for a moment." Raven raises her arms, and black smoke billows, and she disappears, and I wonder if she has to go to the bathroom.

I see a gold streak in the sky from the east through the window I left open this morning, and Kory arrives with Tim in her arms. Gar hops off to turn into a green tiger and stretch out his back. "Thanks for the lift, guys. I remember when they served peanuts on these flights." Then Kon arrives and sets Cassie and Vic down gently, but Vic still doesn't look happy, and—

Suddenly there's another column of smoke. Raven steps out of it carrying four flat white boxes. "I ordered two vegetarian and two with meat. I hope that will please everyone."

Gar licks his chops and says, "Rave, it looks grrr-eeat!"

"Oh, I could have run over to pick those up," I tell her.

"Thank you, Bartholomew, but it is important for me to do ordinary things a young person would do."

Yeah, I think, the pizzeria folks must have thought it was totally ordinary when Raven showed up in a column of smoke.

"Besides, I know where my Titans charge card is."

Was that a zing? From Raven? Before I can figure that out, Cassie starts to open the top pizza box, and I smell sausage and hot pepper, so I pull a two-liter of Zesti from the fridge and pour some for everyone and pass out the glasses and run over and grab the slices from that half.

Cassie blinks as she finishes opening the box and says, "Okay, I guess Bart's served himself. Who wants pepperoni and black olives?"

"That was for Timothy."

"Ooh, where'd he go?" I look around the kitchen, but Tim's done the Batman thing again and disappeared, and I deduce that he took his samples up to his science lab, so since I'm already done eating I grab a slice of pizza for him and run it upstairs before it gets cold. Because there's something I want to ask him in private.